1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to a container for storing items such as floppy diskettes, compact audio disks, laser disks, phonograph records and the like which should be maintained in a dust-free environment.
Particularly, the invention is a lightweight, inexpensive container which has a door and slide arrangement whereby when the door is opened, the slide upon which the stored items rest is moved out of the container and the items which are stored within the container are deposited on the inner surface of the door in a staggered arrangement. The door is formed with a recessed portion on its inner surface which holds a reversible indexing stop member to stagger the items as they move out of the compartment in order to facilitate selection of the desired item from the group of items. The containers have the capability of storing a large number of items since each container may be connected to one or more identical containers to form a self-contained storage unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Storage cases are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,162,112; 4,339,162 and 4,270,817 but none of these patents discloses a container having a compartment closed by a door to protect items stored in the container from dust. This is extremely important because of the type of information which is stored upon diskettes or other items in the container. Additionally, many of the prior art containers utilize a separate mechanical mechanism such as a spring or a resilient member for biasing stored items out of the storage compartment, which adds to the initial expense of the storage case and to the likelihood of breakage due to continuous use. Typical of such arrangements are the storage cases disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,162,112; 4,270,817 and 4,275,943. The container disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,655 is a modification of the container disclosed and claimed herein without certain unloading features.